Local pollution picture makes front cover of nature magazine

The photo by Karl Taylor was taken for a marine pollution campaign, and was a collaborative effort involving Richard Lord from Sustainable Guernsey and volunteers from the group Found on the Beach.

When the image was first released last year it received over a million views on social media, and making the front cover of the monthly periodical is the latest accolade.

Mr Lord said the image struck a chord with people because it highlighted the scale of litter on beaches, in particular the plastic pollution.

‘There is more than 300 million tonnes of plastic being made every year, and around 10 million tonnes of that will end up in the ocean where it kills wildlife and enters the food chain.

‘Much of the plastic that gets made every year is for single-use purposes, meaning it will only get used for a few moments.’

For Mr Lord raising awareness is just one part of the battle against litter, and despite the success of the photo they are not resting on their laurels.

‘We can raise awareness all we want, but plastic is being produced and litter is accumulating much faster than we can pick it up. We have to shut down the sources,’ he said.

To that end Mr Lord is turning detective and cataloguing all the litter he finds on local beaches, and reaching out to the companies involved.

He believes that only a small percentage of the rubbish has been left by careless beach-goers.

Instead maritime shipping has been identified as one of the main contributors to the detritus on Guernsey’s beaches, because crews are illegally throwing their waste over the side.

In June last year Carnival Cruises was fined £15.7m. for flouting environmental laws and dumping plastic waste like trays into the ocean.

Mr Lord pointed at that case as an example of how illegal dumping is common practice among disreputable firms.

Geographical is the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, and the tagline alongside Mr Taylor’s photo reads ‘confronting the global waste crisis’.